In Praise Of Elitism "The elitism question is a complicated matter, not least because of the widely-observed paradox that claims of anti-elitism emanate from academics who write a language of deliberately clotted opaque jargon and make a parade of not particularly relevant erudition. It's also complicated because the word elitism is thrown around with wild abandon with no particular definition being stipulated, as if its meaning were entirely transparent and self-evident and generally agreed on. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Elitism means a great many things, some of them perfectly incompatible with one another, with the result that the word does more to obfuscate discussion than to clarify it." Butterflies & Wheels 05/05
Posted: 05/06/2005 4:22 am
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The Selling Of Jeff Koons Jeff Koons turned 50 this year. Though hye disappeared for a while in the 90s due to some personal problems, in recent years his work has been selling for millions of dollars. "How did an artist who sold his works for relatively modest prices two decades ago reach such peaks? Collectors, dealers, curators, and auction specialists who spoke with ARTnews say that Koons has masterminded his fame and fortune through a combination of charm, guile, and a talent for creating expensive art that inspires critical debate." ARTnews 05/05
Posted: 05/06/2005 4:18 am
Tate Modern - More Than A Museum, A Tourist Attraction "Tate Modern is five years old next week. By any terms, it is a success. In fact, it often feels swamped by its own popularity. Since it opened in May 2000, almost 22 million visitors will have passed through its doors, double the number originally estimated. They thought they had a museum. Instead, they have a tourist attraction." The Guardian (UK) 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:04 pm
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The Hot Band That Refuses To Record A band called the Bays is getting some serious attention. But the band refuses to record and make CD's, saying that live performance is an essential element to enjoying their music. "The Bays remind you that music is about experience rather than shopping. Making records may be "an aberration in the history of music", which has always been about performance." The Guardian (UK) 05/06/05
Posted: 05/06/2005 3:58 am
The Do-It-Yourself Recording Orchestra With the Philadelphia Orchestra announcing it will record every performance for possible later release on CD, might other orchestras be far behind? "Every situation is unique, but all of us are operating in a totally changed environment. In the old days, if things didn't work out with one recording company, there were always a dozen other options. Now there aren't any, and I think everyone realizes that. To make this happen, management and orchestra will have to be partners, not adversaries." Boston Globe 05/06/05
Posted: 05/06/2005 3:42 am
Beethoven Free For All The BBC is playing the complete works of Beethoven. "These concerts will be aired on Radio 3 and ‘streamed’ for a week on the website. This, as never before, is Beethoven for free – a gift to the world, just as the longsuffering composer might have wished. So radical is this departure from all prior conventions of broadcasting and distributing works of music that the consequences are simply uncalculated. No-one knows if ten people or ten million will download the Beethoven symphonies and whether, if kept, they will form the cornerstone for a new habit of hoarding classical music, a surrogate for record buying." La Scena Musicale 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 11:14 pm
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End Of The Age Of Irony? The 90s were the Age of Irony. It was an art, actually... But Scott McLamee sees some distressing signs that irony is... soooo yesterday. Insidehighered.com 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 11:07 pm
The US Senate's Culture Club "Four U.S. senators are spearheading the formation of a new bipartisan Senate caucus to promote the vital role the arts and humanities play in American life -- a coalition that will likely serve as a strong base of support for pro-arts legislation in Congress' upper house." Back Stage 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:07 pm
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It's Tony Season Again "With 39 productions, this has been a bustling Broadway season, one of the busiest in more than a decade. So the joy of those anointed could be tempered by a nagging question: Who will be left out when the 2005 Tony Awards nominations are announced May 10? There may be a few surprises." Baltimore Sun (AP) 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 11:20 pm
Chicago's Unique Place In Theatre "Chicago has always been a city with an exceptionally vibrant theater scene - arguably as exciting, if not as commercially successful, as New York's. Malkovich's return is a reminder of the many talented actors and writers - Gary Sinise, David Mamet, John C. Reilly - who got their start here. But it's also been a city of ensembles, rather than stars - a town known for collaboration, rather than cutthroat competition (among theater companies, at least). And its audiences are still unusually quick to embrace edgy, untested fare." Christian Science Monitor 05/06/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:55 pm
A Broadway With Substance... (Who Knew?) Broadway has some meaty new plays this season. "Significant new works by August Wilson, Michael Frayn and Donald Margulies were produced on the Great White Way this season, and the two new plays still on the boards, John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt" and Martin McDonagh's "Pillowman," are causing the kind of excitement among audiences that is usually reserved for overproduced and overhyped musicals." The New York Times 05/06/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:46 pm
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New OED Debuts The New Oxford American Dictionary publishes a new edition electronically (and on paper too). "Of the new dictionary's more than a quarter million entries, about 2,000 were added since the first edition came out in 2001. Words that gained currency in American English over the last four years, and gained entry in NOAD, include "bridezilla" ("an overzealous bride-to-be who acts irrationally or causes offense") and "speed dating" ("a social activity in which equal complements of potential partners spend a few minutes in short interviews with all other participants in order to determine whether there is interest")." Chicago Tribune 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:28 pm
The Booker's New Prize For Translators Organizers of the Booker Prize have announced a new award for translators. "The £15,000 honour has been created to recognise the role translators play in bringing fiction to a world audience. The author of a work translated into English will collect the new award, and decide who should win if several people were involved in the translation." BBC 05/06/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:19 pm
Linguistically Improbable Marketing Techniques Statistically Improbable Phrases: the term sounds like a highfalutin' way of describing nonsense prose, but in reality, it's an innovative new feature of Amazon.com's search utility. The SIP utility "compares the text of hundreds of thousands of books to reveal an author's signature constructions," and is only one of several new options available for prejudging literature. "Customers can also see how complicated the writing is (yes, post-structuralist Michel Foucault's prose is foggier than Immanuel Kant's), and how much education you need to understand a book. (To understand French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, you'll need a second Ph.D.)" Wired 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 5:44 am
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Inventing The New NPR "Over the past decade, as media conglomerates dumped public-affairs programming in favor of "infotainment" and tabloid trash, NPR recognized the void and moved to fill it with high-quality news reporting. That news-oriented model, by drawing in listeners hungry for substantial coverage of politics and public affairs, has enabled NPR to thrive: Today, it continues to add correspondents and bureaus at a time when most other major news organizations are trimming them. A fair-minded evaluation must conclude that if NPR has turned its back on some of the values enshrined in its original mission statement, it has also, in other ways and despite enormous political pressure from its detractors, remained true to them as well. But a price was paid on the road to respectability." The Nation 05/05/05
Posted: 05/06/2005 4:36 am
Soaps Getting Cleaned In The Ratings After decades as cash cows for American TV networks, the daytime soaps are losing audience fast. "Nielsen Media Research had found that in the first three months of the season that began in September, CBS, ABC, and NBC network soaps lost 18 percent of their female viewers ages 18 to 34, another blow to broadcasters reeling from the rise of cable and satellite services." Boston Globe 05/06/05
Posted: 05/06/2005 3:38 am
In-phone-tainment Endangered By Anti-Piracy Could entertainment content long promised for mobile phones be derailed by anti-piracy measures? "At issue is a set of technologies aimed at protecting music and other content from being indiscriminately copied after being sold through mobile phone networks, a critical component of the new content services if record labels and movie studios are to sign on." C-Net 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:35 pm
Should Canadian Content Rules Be Revised? A group of Canadian indie bands wants the federal government to revise broadcast rules for Canadian content on the airwaves. "The Toronto-based Indie Pool, which says it represents more than 40,000 indie artists in Canada, wants developing artists to get more CanCon "weight" than established ones, so that up-and-comers are not squashed by the big stars. The reason why CanCon is failing is because it worked." CBC 05/05/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 10:12 pm
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Bourne Reinvents The Classics "Over the last decade and a half, Matthew Bourne has virtually reinvented some of the sacred cows of the classical ballet repertoire: "La Sylphide," "Swan Lake," and "The Nutcracker" on his own markedly accessible terms. He's aware, perhaps, that these works were probably never as "sacred" as purists would like to suppose, and he has invested them with a funny, sexy, surprising, mischievous, and even dangerous freshness. He has also discovered in them, and their musical scores, unsuspected and compelling story lines." Christian Science Monitor 05/06/05
Posted: 05/05/2005 11:00 pm
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